


Unstable Gaming

by Gepardo



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: ? - Freeform, Mental Health Issues, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 04:07:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/895590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gepardo/pseuds/Gepardo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gold tries to find a way to help Jefferson's madness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unstable Gaming

**Author's Note:**

> This is a jumbelle ficlet that got away from me, the prompt was what kind of games Jefferson plays, and it just got a little out of hand.

Decades of isolation, first in wonderland, close off in a room with nothing but hat-making supplies, and then pulled into a realm without magic to suffer inside a house who refuse to open it’s windows or doors, where a life that wasn’t his own tried to assert itself over his own real memories on a daily basis. After all that, it was easy to see why mad hatter was not exactly a stable person. Jefferson still try thought, Belle and Rumplestiltskin knew better then anyone, that he try to hell and back to be normal enough just so he wouldn’t scare Gracie, or hurt anyone without meaning to. Rum had long sent Jefferson to see Dr. Hopper, although the man’s authority in mind healing was questionable at best, and the recommendation that perhaps Jeff should stay in the remodeled asylum for further treatment had lead to a screaming match between Hopper and Belle over psychiatry practices that left both Rum and Jeff more confuse then anything. 

 

It had been settled that he would go to therapy weekly, and Jefferson seemed to be doing fine. He was still a bit too animated, and too hyperactive around other people, but he seemed okay so long he was allowed to decompress away from others when he choose to. It all seemed to be going well, until Gracie’s school play. Everything was fine during the play, but once all the lights came back, parents started socializing with each other and searching for their wayward children or the starlets that had been in the stage. The noise level went too high and too many people came too close.  They didn’t see the signs of the mad hatter becoming too overwhelm and then breaking until a pungent scent of urine hit their noses.  After that, they were quick, Belle took Jefferson away and Rum erased memories of the event with a flick of his wrist. He didn’t care for memories spells, but he would not let one of his lovers suffer such humiliation.  He gather Gracie and took her for ice cream.

By the time they got home, Jefferson was back to his usual self, if not a little more loopy. A shake of pill bottle from Belle told Gold everything he needed to know. Therapy sessions were upped three times a week, and Jefferson hid under their bed making miniature dresses for the next six days.

— — —

Jefferson seemed okay for a while, mostly because he decided to stay away from everyone but immediate family, thought Gold thought was a bit moronic since the imp was related to half the town apparently. None the less, the hatter didn’t leave the pink palace unless necessary, and even then, he had a tendency to stay in big open areas. They allowed him to do this until Belle found him under the bed one day. They weren’t sure where Jeff had picked up that behavior of hiding under the bed whenever he was scared or ashamed, and trying to talk about it only sent him further under the bed. Rum tried to talk to him about why he was under the bed this particularly stormy day, since the hatter was a lower of rain, but talking to seemed to just make him more nervous. 

Not seeing much point to stressing the hatter further, he left alone under the bed and went to the computer to try and figure out that new program Belle had told him would help with the shop’s finances. That held his attention for an amazing six minutes before he was loading his W&B game. He stared in surprise once the game was fully loaded. What in the seven hells had happen here? The creature he had so lovingly nurture into evil was now this…this…white pristine being of good.  It didn’t take genius to know who had done it, after all, Belle didn’t care for this ‘power trip’ game, and Gracie had her own laptop…and…you know…the guilty one wash hiding under the bed. 

Sighing, he went back to the bedroom and sat down on said bed. “So, you were playing my game…” There was eeep as a response. “Jefferson, it’s fine, I am not thrill that you saved over my file, but….” He smiled when the other peeked out from his hiding place. “I am not mad, Jeff, I promise. Saving over my game, however grievous offense that it is, should not lead you under our bed. Why were you on the computer, anyways? You never been fond of it before.”

He slipped out from under the bed and sat next to the once-imp. “It’s all so very noisy….” 

“The computer?”

“My head.” Rum frowned and knitted his eyebrows together before signaling the other to continuo. “Went to the diner yesterday..”

“That’s nice.” He never really tried to follow Jeff’s thought pattern, it gave him headaches at times. “Did you talk to the jabberwocky about her frozen lasagnas? Or were you checking on Victor’s date with the puppy?”

That got him a mad little giggle and he smiled in return. “It got very…crowded…”

“In your head, or in the diner?”

“Both.” Jeff frowned and his partner mimic the expression. 

“Did you get out?”  The mad hatter shook his head so quickly, he wonder if his brain was getting scrambled. “What happen?”

“I panicked….” Rum wonder if he should check with Granny on what exactly happen and if he should burn down the Daily Mirror. Whose great idea was to bring Sidney back out of the looking mirror? “…Henry showed me his new gameboy.”

His brain strutted to a stop and he stared. “…what?”

“Henry gave me his game boy when I was getting very nervous…He started chattering like a monkey about this new game and wanted me to try it.”

“What was it about? Did you liked it?”

“…Not really, it was all space ships and shooting stuff down….” He mumbled, scratching the back of his head. “And people with strange glowing swords. I liked the green little one that spoke weird thought. But Henry wanted me to play it. He kept telling me to do this or that while he had lunch with Emma and Neal. I thought it was a bit rude to be sitting there playing a game…but they didn’t seemed to mind, just kept talking to me, and Henry wouldn’t let me give it back to him. He said he didn’t want the story to stop just cause he had to eat.” 

Rum snorted softly at that, of course. “Oh?”

“The diner was empty by the time he let me give him the game back…”

“And no more panic?” The hatter shook his head. “That’s good.”

“I like your games better…”

“….See, I don’t know if you are talking about the computer ones or the one’s in the bedroom…” 

— — — 

It took a couple of weeks, and having almost all his games files be over written by the hatter to see the pattern. Whenever a crowd trigger a near or actual overload in the hatter, one of Rum’s game files would suddenly appear several levels ahead, or even behind if Jefferson couldn’t figure out how to play the game from the last save spot and just started from the beginning. Whatever excess energy, he seemed to direct to a game, rather then try to find Gold’s vicodin, or hide under the bed(which still happen every time he restarted one of his games, but not when he saved over one of his files). When he started to find his console games being overridden by the hatter as well, Gold decided it was time to try a theory he had been forming, before the damn hatter decided to destroy his lvl. 100 Mewtwo and replace it with a wimpy lvl. 1 budew. 

So, he grabbed the hatter and sat him down with him with Gracie’s laptop. He had him picked out a handheld console he could take everywhere and then they spent whole hour picking out every game that Jefferson show even a sprinkle of interest in, and a bunch of gear to go with the console, before putting all to be sent overnight to the pink palace. Afterwards, he dragged the madman by the ear to every single gaming thing they had and taught him how to save on other files besides Rum’s own! He didn’t mind sharing his games, but it was sure as hell annoying to leave a game with a necromancer and come back to a thieving rogue! No, he didn’t care that the rogue was obviously better! He wanted to razed villages down with zombies, damn it!

When the package came, he handed all of it over to Jefferson, plus a second handheld to Gracie with a couple of games that were supposedly able to connect to other people’s. Rum wasn’t sure how, but he decided to let them figure it out. After giving Gracie a gift card to go buy any other game she was interest in, he gave her the very specific rule of not playing during class time or the homework time that was put aside every day, or while walking. Rum then turned around and order Jeff to take his console everywhere he went with as many of his new games as he wanted. All of them if necessary. 

He hadn’t expected Jefferson to build a small series of straps inside his hat to hold a case with all his games, however, the rest fitted well with his theory. Jefferson seemed to understand the concept behind giving him a handheld console. Whenever a place where he was started to get too crowd, he would take out one of his games and start playing, more often then not, both Gracie and Henry would join him, either by their own consoles, or trying to figure out a difficult part in the game. Neal even seemed glad to join in whenever they were having difficulty with a certain puzzle. For a newb, he sometimes had the right solution. 

Jefferson sometimes still removed himself from the place stressing him out altogether if he felt he couldn’t just distract himself with his games or with the children, and the town eventually learned to let him actually leave a situation. Sometimes Rum found him a few ways away from a group, giggling to himself and whispering into the console and laughing when it repeated the word rather loudly. Apparently one of Jefferson favorite series was about lawyers, while the other one was about a professor who solved puzzles, that one in particular was one he liked to play with Gracie or Henry helping him.  Both Victor and Jeff were disappointed to find out Animal Crossing had nothing to do with making hybrid animals, but the hatter still loved the game, having a little world to escape to was just fine with him.  He fell completely in loved with the Kingdom Hearts series, and Rum had a suspicion it was more to do with the heartless and nobody concept rather then world jumping Belle seemed to think attracted the ex-realm traveler. 

The mad hatter was still insane, still slightly anti-social, but he didn’t suffer from overloads to his senses anymore, at least it didn’t happen nearly as often as it had once had, nor to the extreme degree it had once been.  He still every once in a while saved over Rum’s files, and hid under the bed to escape the imp’s wrath. 


End file.
